Help Support the House

The Graduate Association asks for your support to ensure the safety of our undergraduates and the preservation of the House. Although the rents paid by the undergraduates and your recurring donations adequately cover our debt financing, taxes, insurance, maintenance, and utilities, we are faced with the need to immediately upgrade our fire prevention and alarm system. In order to meet current code standards, we anticipate we will have to invest $100,000 over the next two years.

We have successfully re-negotiated our mortgage and controlled our costs and have run well in the black for the last three years. We now have adequate funds and feel ready to initiate this critical upgrade as soon as find out what is legally required. However, to complete the task, we will need your support. Later this spring we hope to pass a fuller report on to all our graduates, but we have been told that the FDNY will no longer grandfather our current sprinkler and fire alarm system. As owners of 526 West 114th Street, the Graduate Association now must correct the system or face continuing violation notices and sizable fines.

After years of planning and working to buy back the House, and the extraordinary efforts we have made to improve it and return it to its position as the finest house on the Columbia campus, we need to make sure that we can complete this critical safety improvement and comply with the New York City requirements. Once we have this behind us, we hope to put our energies and financing to further improve the undergraduate quality of life, literary experience, and enjoyment.